Brandon Graham About Fashion Illustration vs Fashion Sketch
Brandon Graham from New York, menswear fashion designer is the first I invited to talk about the difference between fashion illustration and fashion sketch.
Read below his perspective:
“A fashion design sketch is more technical. For example, these type of sketches show where darts and seams should be placed. This is done for a pattern maker or a tech designer to can interpret simpler the sketch and make a flat sketch.
Design sketches are worked and reworked therefore one sketch maybe slightly different from the next. So you tend to see the sketches on croquis to speed up the process. You also tend to see “blow ups” of details that are too small to see. These are placed around the sketch or off to the side with written notes to further explain details that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Designers will do these sketches as a necessary step in creating a garment before creating illustrations for advertisements to customers. Typically there are no backgrounds or unecesssary extras drawn for design sketches. The designer wants to connect with the viewer on a technical not an emotional level at this point.
Fashion illustrations creates a mood. It gets people excited, it’s idealized, and helps create a fantasy for the viewer.
You can see this type of art in galleries, advertising, and magazine editorials. Often a fashion illustration can elicit a feeling in people that a photograph or a fashion design sketch could never accomplish. You rarely see fashion illustrations drawn on croquis because it doesn’t allow for various loose and expressive poses.
Drawing on croquis restricts a fashion illustrator from communicating with their audience. Since an illustrator is doing one-of-a-kind art there is no need for croquis that serve as a template to draw different versions of the same thing. Many times I’ve seen beautiful fashion illustrations that are impossible to create because the artist didn’t think to much about technical issues.
Also, as artists we are always trying to promote ourselves and our work.Another clear way to tell the difference between the two and this may sound trivial, but is whether an artist signs his artwork. A design sketch is usually for in-house purposes, therefore, it’s really no need for the signature. But for an illustrator he or she is more likely to add that extra touch.”
Pictures credit: Brandon Graham
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